I always see these cookies at coffee shops but never bothered with them. Until recently, Drew got a bag from La Boulange in San Francisco and I'm (almost) ashamed to admit, I ate almost all of it. My curiosity grew and looked up recipes online. To my surprise, they're super easy to make! I've put my spin on it, as most recipes did and was quite happy with my innovations.
Here's my recipe. This recipe will make you two batches of cookies because the pastry sheet package already comes with two pastry sheets. The instructions below only uses half of the ingredients, assuming you will use up both pastry sheets right away.
So, for two batches of cookies, you will need:
1 package (1 lb) of prepared puff pastry sheets (Pepperidge Farm is best.)
2/3 bar stick butter
1 cup white granulated sugar
2 T ground cinnamon
wax paper
parchment paper
1. Thaw out puff pastry sheets. You cannot work with frozen sheets. The Pepperidge Farm package comes with 2 half-pound flat pastry sheets. Prehead your oven to 375 F.
2. Prepare your work surface with sheets of wax paper. Your work surface can be a counter top or table. Place wax sheets on it large enough for to spread the pastry sheet to the size of a legal sized paper. Spread 1/4 cup of the sugar on the wax papers. Spread as evenly as possible.
3. Lay one of the thawed out pastry sheet on the sugar which is on the wax paper. With a rolling pin, roll out the pastry sheet to about the size of a legal paper. Push the rolling pin down firmly so that the sugar will stick.
4. Once rolled out, sprinkle 1/8 cup of sugar on top of the rolled out sheet. Next, sprinkle 1 T of cinnamon as evenly as possible. For a more cinammon-y taste, increase the cinnamon.
5. It's time to roll your pastry! Roll one side to the halfway mark. Then roll the other side to meet the halfway mark again. Once rolled, slice the rolled up dough about 1/8 inch thick. Note: the dough will be a bit tender to slice and to work with. Some recipes suggested freezing the dough about 30 minutes prior to slicing. I did not do this and don't know what the effect is on the end result.
6. Once the dough is all sliced up, arrange the pieces on a baking sheet that's lined with parchment paper. You may have to discard the end pieces of the rolled dough. Arrange the pieces wide enough apart as the puff pastry sheets will expand. The looser the space in the roll, the flakier the cookie will be. This, I found I was able to do because my dough was not frozen and the roll was not so tightly rolled up.
7. Melt half of the butter in a small bowl in the microwave. Mix in the remainder 1/8 cup of sugar (for one recipe) to this melted butter. Brush the tops of the slices with this mixture.
8. Place the baking sheets filled with dough slices in the oven for about 25 minutes. Depending on your type of oven, you may need more or less baking time, but I found 25 minutes was average. You will notice that the tops will begin to caramelize with the butter and sugar. If you want a more brown cookie, leave inside the oven longer. The more brown the cookie, the tougher it may become.
9. Take the baking sheets out of the oven and because you used parchment paper, the cookies should easily slide off. I have not tried spraying the baking sheet with non-stick butter or oil and don't know what result that will make.
10. Let the cookies cool (or not) and enjoy! They are great warm or cool.
11. Now it's time to use up the rest of the ingredients, so start from #1 above!
I hope you enjoy making these as much as I do. They're super easy because they're semi-home made. I'm not a baker, so I was not even going to attempt to make my own puff pastry sheets.
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